Monday, July 15, 2013

Save Your Breath, Zimmerman Supporters - The Black Community Know You Better Than You Know Yourselves

The vast majority of people in this country - both Black, White, and others - are good people. While we all have a strain of racism in us, it’s not a conscious racism, and most of us of normal intelligence are engaged in a constant internal struggle to eradicate it when we recognize it in ourselves. What makes it such a struggle is we’re constantly inundated by it in this country, and the reason we try so desperately to weed it out is, being of normal intelligence, we see it for what it is - a form of gross stupidity.
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But as a Black man - one who has three mixed grandsons, including Eric Wattree III, and a daughter-n-law who is so pure in her White heritage that she makes Mitt Romney look like an Angolan immigrant - I’ve found the debate over the George Zimmerman verdict very enlightening. I used to think that racism was a choice, but now I see that there is a group of people, of normally good conscience, in this country whose racist strain is so innate to who they are that they are completely blind to it. They don’t intend to be racist, nevertheless, their racist attitudes and assumptions seep all the way to their bone marrow. We’ve seen a clear example of that in the Zimmerman verdict..One's predisposition colors the way that one perceives the world. Therefore, in my opinion, the only way that it would be possible to view George Zimmerman’s actions in a less than culpable manner is to view reality through the clouded lens of, at the very least, a predisposition towards latent and unrecognized racism.
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Many who support the verdict, yet recognize it as the brutal assault on American justice that it is, are trying to hide behind the law by saying that they had no choice but to let Zimmerman off due to the reading of Florida law. But that’s not only a weak argument, but a transparent attempt to justify their innate predisposition not to hold Zimmerman accountable for his actions.
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This verdict boiled down to whether or not the jury believed Zimmerman's story, in spite of all its flaws. It wasn't the law that determined whether or not the jury accepted Zimmerman’s story that Trayvon attacked him, or that he feared for his life against a child who weighed 40 pounds less than himself, or that once he had the gun out he had to pull the trigger. It was their predisposition to want to believe him.
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The bottom line is, this verdict essentially, and in fact, convicted an innocent victim instead of a murderer who engaged in a series of extraordinary and improper actions that led to the victim's death. Thus, in order to excuse the murderer's improper actions, and to convict the victim instead of the murder, it required a mind-set that betrays a racist predisposition - whether the assessor of fact was trying to act in good faith or not..
It takes either racism or a complete lack of common sense not to clearly recognize that racism played a huge role in both George Zimmerman’s motives, and his intent. First, the only thing that caught Zimmerman’s attention about Trayvon Martin was the fact that he was a Black male. Secondly, Zimmerman contacted 911 more than 40 times, and virtually every call involved Black males. Third, Zimmerman was instructed to remain in his car, and he ignored those instructions. Fourth, Zimmerman claimed he murdered Trayvon in self-defense, but regardless to what took place after he approached Trayvon, Zimmerman had to approach Trayvon to place himself in a position to require him to have to defend himself. And fifth, Zimmerman claimed that he had to resort to lethal force because Trayvon, who weighed 40 pounds less than him, was banging his head against the concrete so vigorously that it caused him to fear for his life. Yet, all he had to show for this brutal assault were a few scratches, not the huge lumps on his head that you would expect from a person whose head had been banged against concrete.
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Thus, I feel safe in saying that no parent in America - Black or White - would find that anywhere close to a justifiable excuse for the murder of their child - a child who was doing nothing more criminal than going to the store to get a bag of Skittles. So I submit that it takes either gross racism or gross stupidity to accept such a story as a justification for murder.
. In order for people to accept such a story they have to be of the following mindset:
1). Simply because Trayvon was Black that was an acceptable reason for Zimmerman to suspect him of criminal activity.
2). Again, because Trayvon was Black, he posed a serious enough threat to the community to justify Zimmerman ignoring police instructions to remain in his car.
3). Since Trayvon was Black, they should ignore the fact that Zimmerman actually approached him in the first place.
4) Since Trayvon was Black, it was the height of audacity for him to think he had the right to defend himself after being confronted by a man who wasn’t a police officer, and who didn’t have any visible sign of authority.
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If the above seems reasonable to you, you're a racist - period.
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If we accept that as the standard for justice in this country, that could cause murder-for-hire to overtake drug dealing as an easy source of disposable income. What’s to prevent some woman’s boyfriend from dragging her husband in an alley, blowing his brains out, and then calling the police and claiming self-defense? Or what’s to prevent a robber from killing his victim to cover his crime, and then calling the police and claiming he was attacked? Thus, the standard that Zimmerman was freed on was absolutely ridiculous - and clearly racist in nature.
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An assault is an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. So just by following, and then walking up to Trayvon at night constituted was an assault, because you don't have to put your hands on a person for it to constitute an assault. Putting you hands on them is assault and battery. An assault is merely placing them in fear for their well being. So it was Trayvon who had the right to defend himself. If the exact same scenario had taken place, but it had been a Black man who killed a White kid, the Black man would undoubtedly already be on Death Row - for first degree murder.
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But Black people are used to such ridiculous standards being applied to them, because many Americans, when it comes to self-serving comfort of racism, have a pronounced blind spot - and it’s historic in nature. The blind arrogance of many Americans is absolutely astounding - and then they’ll say things like, "There you go playing the race card again!" Of course we are, because you’re a racist, idiot!
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How in the hell can a White person even presume to tell a Black man about racism, and the state of racism in America? They have absolutely no idea what America looks like through the eyes of a Black man. George Zimmerman stalked an unarmed Black child, who was minding his own business, AFTER being told by the police to stay in his car, then shot and killed him. That’s murder, regardless to how you slice it - Period.
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Now, I love this country, but I don’t suffer any illusions about what it represents. But if you relate the truth about this country to some White folks - especially conservatives - they’re so blind to reality that they’ll call you un-American, regardless to how many facts you bring to bear. The reason for that is, as Americans, we’re expected to adhere to an unspoken agreement to perpetuate the American myth.
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But the easily demonstrable fact is, the United States is one of the most racist countries on the face of the Earth - and it always has been. All this "freedom and justice for all" was a lie when it was written, and it's still a lie.
.Again, Americans have a delusional blind spot when it comes to this country. We condemned Hitler for killing 6 million Jews, but we conveniently ignore the fact that Americans killed over 100 million Native Americans - and some historians place the number at closer 300 million. We call Al Qaeda unconscionable terrorists for killing three thousand Americans, then we trot right over to Iraq and kill over one million innocent women and children - and for absolutely nothing! Then we talk about the war against terrorism, but we're the only country on Earth that has dropped not one, but two, atomic bombs on Japan - one each, on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing and maiming thousands of innocent men, women, children, cute little puppies, and cuddly little kittens.
. Yeah, I know - we were at war with Japan. But we were at war with the Japanese government, not innocent noncombatants, and terrorism is defined as "the killing of innocent noncombatants for political purposes." So based on that definition, the United States is the most brutal and prolific terrorist nation in the history of mankind - and I didn't even mention the atrocities committed during slavery, the Jim Crow years, and during WWII when Black war heroes were forced to give up their seats on the train for Nazi prisoners of war.
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So George Zimmerman supporters can talk until their mouths are dry about why he was justified in killing that innocent child, but they’re not fooling the Black community for one second. Because contrary to what they’ve obviously convinced themselves to believe, being a minority and being dumb is far from synonymous, so we know them much better than they obviously know themselves.

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Eric L. Wattree

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BIO

Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet, and musician, born in Los Angeles. He’s been a columnist for The Los Angeles Sentinel, Black Star News, The Atlanta Post, and is a member of the Sigma Delta Chi Society of Professional Journalists (http://www.spj.org/). He’s also the author of "A Message From the Hood."Some of the greatest minds I’ve ever known held court while sitting on empty milk crates in the parking lots of ghetto liquor stores, while some of the weakest minds I’ve ever known roamed the halls of academia in pursuit of credentials over knowledge.Eric L. Wattreehttp://www.whohub.com/wattree

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